Everybody's Looking for Something
by mandaree1
Summary: Webby writes stories. Webby begins to dreamwalk. Webby misses her dead best friend.


**Disclaimer: I don't own Ducktales!**

**Title: Everybody's Lookin' for Something**

**Summary: Webby writes stories. Webby begins to dreamwalk. Webby misses her dead best friend.**

**Setting: Start of season 2.**

**...**

"1950s?" Lena guessed, twirling around her red shirt and skirt. "The poodle on the side kinda gave it away."

A sardonic smile curled Webby's beak as she handed Lena a leather jacket. "Kind of? It's not sexist and racist like the_ actual_ 1950s, but we're at a sock hop at the soda fountain."

Lena nodded in time with the vaguely rock-n-roll juicebox while Webby got the milkshakes. Strawberry for herself and chocolate for Lena, because Lena had made a joke about not liking strawberry one (1) time and she'd somehow catalogued that forever in her mind. "Heard you had a rough day, Pink."

"Oh, the _roughest_," she groaned around the straw. "Flintheart got amnesia, and I thought he was gonna be good forever! And then he chucked me into the ocean! And it was really lowkey but I think he wanted me to drown and I am not a'okay with that!"

"Why'd you trust him?" Lena asked. It'd been on her mind for a good while now. "Sure, he was nice, but he wasn't a nice _guy_, you know?"

Webby shrugged. "People said the same thing about you." She fiddled with the glass a bit, spinning it in circles. Strawberry goo dripped onto the tablecloth. "I guess I just miss you, is all."

Lena stopped sipping her shake. "Hey, I'm waaay better than Flintheart Glomgold," she said, trying to lighten the mood a bit. "You wanna... man, how did it go... _cut the rug at the place called The Jug? _Wait. No. That's 70s, not 50s."

"I don't get that reference."

"Lynyrd Skynyrd. It's a song about some wacko waving a gun in a dude's face 'cause he danced with his girl or whatever." Lena held out her hand. "Wanna do the dancing part, only without the outdated and controlling bits?"

"I like dancing parts!"

Lena didn't know how to dance. She took Webby's hands and twirled instead. Their skirts billowed out and around. Webby's was the colors of her bracelet, made from love and devotion and even a bit of sweat. Lena was red. She was always red.

In this magical, magical world, they never got dizzy.

* * *

Webby won the battle. She was the rising Champion, after all, an Ace Trainer, and Lena was just some Team Skull Punk with a Midnight Lycanroc.

Afterwards, they share some snacks. Webby's Rapidash takes a shine to Lycanroc, nuzzling them with their horn. Their mane flickers blue. On Rapidash's back is Webby's Comfee, humming a merry tune.

"One flying type and you're screwed," Lena said, eyebrow raised mischievously. "How you gonna fight the Elite Four?"

Webby shrugged. "Why do I have to?" she asks rhetorically. "I'm here, and this is nice. I don't need a fancy badge for it."

Lena paused, beak quirked. "Are you... okay? That doesn't sound like the same Webby who would sacrifice herself for the rebellion."

"Ambition hasn't done me much good lately," she replied. "Letting go of it did me some good, actually. With some Harpies." Webby tapped the ridges of her soda can anxiously. "I always dreamed of being everybody's friend, you know? Just like Launchpad. But I couldn't even be yours."

The teenager leaned on her. "Hey, don't think like that. You mean so much to me, Webs."

"You should've told me."

"Maybe I was scared."

"I would've protected you."

"I think I knew that," she admitted. "And I think that scared me even more. I've never had someone love me like you do."

"I don't know that," Webby rebuffed. "Which means you can't know it either."

Lena scowled, but didn't argue. "So. You don't wanna be Champion. What's next for you, m'lady?"

Webby looked out at her Rapidash, Cupcakes, as it nipped at the fur on Lycanroc's scruff. "Why not just stay here?"

"Ooooh," said Lena. "Betraying the mission for Team Skull? Nice plot twist, Pink."

"Why does it have to be a team?" she shot back, emboldened. "Let's run away, and start our own Pokémon journey! With extra super fast running shoes!"

"Even better plot twist!" Lena decided, hopping off the rock she'd been standing in front of since the start of time. "Let's do it."

* * *

"I'm not making the Monty Python reference," Lena said as the toy knife 'cut' into her midsection.

Webby triumphantly pulled her sword up. "Of course not, Sir Lena! That was a mortal wound I left you!"

Lena fell backwards, heavy metal armor crunching as she hit. "Oh, the haunting cries of... I dunno? The damned? Sure, let's go with that. They've come for me!"

"You wouldn't go to the damned," she said, with a surprising amount of ferocity. "You'd go somewhere safe, and warm, and-"

"You've ever been in a shadow, Webby? They aren't exactly furnaces."

Webby crouched down beside her. Despite looking historically accurate, the metal armor was soft and easy to maneuver in.

"Sorry," Lena said.

"Don't be," Webby said.

"I broke immersion. These are your stories, and-"

"Della's alive."

Lena blinked at her. "That lady who yeeted herself into space?"

"Yeah. Her."

"Weird."

"Yeah. Weird." Webby grabbed her hand and squeezed. "Is it bad I... I wish it was you?"

"I don't think we're allowed to decide who does or doesn't come back after things like that. And, besides. This_ thing_ we do wouldn't mean anything, then."

Webby does a weird hiccup-giggle thing and tries to pretend she's not crying a little. "She's got a metal foot now. It's pretty sick. She threw it at Scrooge when he wouldn't pass the salt shaker."

"Nice."

"I think Scrooge has a concussion."

"Sort-of nice?"

Webby laughed.

* * *

This farm is made ready, but it's only Lena-level ready. The dirt is plowed but not watered, and the four-day-wheat-seeds are in the dirt in little piles. Lena's hands are covered in dirt and she's wearing flannel and a sun hat and it's everything Webby ever wanted out of Stardew Valley.

Webby slumped into her rocking chair. "I can't keep doing this."

"Trouble at the mines?" Lena asked, wiping her hands. She strolled up to the porch. "I always hated those Shadow Shaman."

"I can't keep playing these games, Lena," Webby said.

"Video game addiction? I hear that's pretty serious affliction these days."

"You're not_ listening_." Lena fell silent, sitting on the top step. "I can't keep... doing this. The dreams. They hurt too much, Lena."

Lena flinched. "Oh."

"This isn't even the real you. This is just... my brain trying to _be_ you." Webby flapped her hand around. "This isn't you. None of this is you. You would be tearing me to shreds right now for how nerdy this is."

"Just because it's not my style doesn't mean-"

"That's just it! The Lena I know would_ tell_ me that." Webby shook her head at herself. "What even are you? The amalgamation of how much I miss you?"

Lena stared at her scuffed boots. "You don't wanna be with me, then."

She heaved a long, shuddering breath. "I- I want you with me so much. I want you alive. I want you to be a Della, Lena, and to have the Duck luck." Webby hopped off her chair with the kind of grim resolve that would make Beakley proud. "But I'm not a Duck. I'm a Vanderquack. And the sooner I accept it... the sooner I stop doing this to myself... the better it will be."

"Okay," Lena said, quiet. "Okay."

"I don't want to forget you, Lena. But it hurts too much to remember you, too."

* * *

_(In your dreams, you're a wolf. And you love a little bunny. So you make her a nice little nest in your den, filled with bones and carcasses and other things that you can't ever admit to the bunny._

_And the bunny sees the nest, and the bones, and you._

_And the bunny runs away._

_And when Lena wakes, the whisp of a shadow of a duck, she's just as easily forgotten you here, too.)_

**Author's Note: Lordy-Loo did I have a lot of fun with this one! It's been a bit since I got to write bittersweet Weblena, so here ya'll go! And shoutout to my peeps on Discord for suggesting some AUs to use in the dreams!**

**This could have been longer/more detailed, but I like it as it is.**

**-Mandaree1**


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